VMware has ended its OEM relationship with the security start-up Tanium in what is turning out as an annus horribilis for the security outfit.
Both VMware and Tanium confirmed the end of the OEM relationship with their various spinners saying that the decision was mutual.
The ending appears due to conflicts related to the Tanium OEM deal payment structure and to challenges in supporting Tanium’s tricky tech. Tanium has removed VMware from its list of technology partners on its website.
VMware said the two will continue to work together in some capacity to service joint customers.
The couple have been together since June 2016 and VMware created a new offering called VMware TrustPoint. It was supposed to allow an IT administrator to monitor, discover and manage threats and vulnerabilities, and to manage end point updates and OS migrations.
It was targeted at securing endpoints and easing Windows 10 desktop migration projects.
During the honeymoon period VMware Executive Vice President and General Manager of End User Computing Sanjay Poonen praised Tanium’s “highly innovative” approach to end point management and security.
Tanium’s proprietary peer-to-peer technology lets organisations continually scan all endpoints in their global networks, finding and fixing security vulnerabilities and identifying and controlling unmanaged devices.
In fact at one point the companies were close to merging. Acquisition talks took place in late 2015. Sources said at the time that Tanium’s high valuation, combined with Dell’s $67 billion bid in October to acquire VMware parent EMC, prevented the acquisition talks from progressing further.
Tanium has had a pretty terrible year. The outfit has been hit by multiple reports of a troubled company culture. The company was slammed for exposing a client’s private network information without permission in demos. Tanium CEO Orion Hindawi has apologized for both issues in a blog post.
The outfit has seen multiple top-level executive flee in recent months including the sudden exit of CFO and COO Eric Brown in March. Tanium has replaced Brown with former Dreamworks executive Fazal Merchant. Tanium has also seen the departures of its CMO and head of sales last year, and multiple VP-level channel executives.
Tanium had been considering an initial public offering.
